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LS84S2 - Creation comes out of meditation
Los Alamos, USA - 21 March 1984
Seminar 2



0:41 M. Raju: Thank you very much for coming. Our plan today is to have one and a half hours of active dialogue with our distinguished speaker on creativity. All of you have the copies of the questions that I received from some of you. We realise that the time is very short to address all these questions and hence we request the speaker to select the questions that are pertinent to the subject of creativity within our time limitations. We hope that there may be some time for additional questions during the course of this dialogue. I have requested Dr Karl Braithwaite, Francis Menlow, Raymond Rogers, and Frank Harlow to moderate this discussion. May I request you all to please listen with total attention during this dialogue, and if you would like to ask some questions, please be brief. We have no time for long questions. Please be brief. Without taking any more precious time, I request the speaker to start this dialogue.
3:25 Krishnamurti: There are here fifteen questions. Which shall we take first? Shall we take the first one?
3:42 Question: What is meditation and how is it related to creativity?
3:50 Could we take that first?
4:00 Meditation is a very complex business, this is a dialogue between us, as I said, it's a very complex business. The word meditation implies, both in Sanskrit and in English, not only the brain concentrating on a certain subject, but also it implies a great deal of attention, but primarily meditation means, in Sanskrit, to measure. And also in English I believe, etymologically, is to measure. The whole question of becoming is involved in it, which is to measure, I am this, I'll be that. I am greedy, but I will gradually become non-greedy, which is a form of measurement, which is form of becoming. Both becoming in the affairs of the world and psychologically becoming. That is the whole question of measurement. The Greeks, the ancient Greeks, you know all about that, I don't have to go into it, were the originators of measurement. Without measurement there would be no technology. And the Asiatics, especially in India, said measurement is illusion, measurement means limitation. I am translating, they didn't exactly say this, they put it differently. So, measurement means comparison, to compare what is, what should be, the ideal, the fact, the fact becoming the ideal. All that is implied in meditation. And also in meditation is implied the meditator and the meditation. I don't know if you're following. If there is any difficulty in understanding what the speaker is saying, jump on him, please. Because it's a very complex business. And especially, some of the Indian gurus have brought this word into America and made a lot of money out of it. They are multimillionaires, I have met them. They are appalling beings, they are all out for money. So, to enquire into meditation, you have to enquire first not only of measurement, but also this constant becoming something, psychologically. Human beings are violent, and the ideal is to be in a state of non-violence, which is to become.
7:54 Questioner: So you set goals for your meditation?
7:56 K: I am saying what is implied in the whole structure and the nature of meditation. It is not how to meditate but what is meditation, rather than how. I hope I'm making myself clear. And also there is a question involved in that: who is meditating? And most of the systems of meditation whether in the Japanese, and the Hindus and so on, Tibetan, there is always the controller and the controlled. Are we meeting each other? So there is the controller controlling thought, to quieten the thought, to shape thought according to a purposeful direction. So there is the controller and the controlled. Who is the controller? Please, all this is implied in meditation, not merely to control one's thought as is generally understood in meditation, whether it is Zen meditation, or the most complex forms of meditation which take place in India and elsewhere, there is always the director, the entity that controls thought. So they've divided psychologically the thinker and the thought. So the thinker separates himself from the whole activity of thought, and therefore in meditation is implied the controller controlling thought so as to make thought quiet. That is the essence of meditation, to bring about a state of brain, I won't use the mind for the moment, to make the brain quiet. I'll explain a little more and go into that.
10:57 So, there is a division between the controller and the controlled. Who is the controller? Very few people have asked that question. They're all delighted to meditate, hoping to get somewhere, illumination, enlightenment, and quietness of the brain, peace of mind and so on. But very few people have enquired who is the controller. May we go on with that? The controller is also thought. The controller is the past, is the entity or the movement of time as the past, and measure. So there is the past who is the thinker, separate from the thought, and the thinker tries to control thought. Human beings have invented God. Sorry, I hope you don't mind. You won't be shocked if I go into all this?
12:30 Q: No, go ahead.
12:33 K: Human beings, out of their fear, invented God. And they tried to reach God, which is the ultimate principle, as in India it's called Brahman, it's the ultimate principle. And meditation is to reach the ultimate. So meditation is really very complex, it is not just merely meditating for twenty minutes in the morning, twenty minutes in the afternoon, and twenty minutes in the evening, which is taking a siesta, not meditation at all. So, if one wants to discover what is meditation, one has to ask why does one have to meditate. One realises one's brain is constantly chattering, constantly planning, designing what it will do, what it has done, the past impinging itself on the present. Its everlasting chattering, chattering, chattering, whether the scientific chatter, sorry, or ordinary daily life chatter, like a housewife chattering endlessly about something or other. So the brain is constantly in movement. Now, the idea of meditation is to make the brain quiet, silent, completely attentive, and in that attention find that which is, perhaps you will object to this word, eternity, or something sacred. That is the intention of those who really have gone into this question. The speaker has gone into this for the last sixty years or more. He has discussed this question with the Zen pundits, with the Zen patriarchs, with the Hindus and Tibetan, and all the rest of the gang. I hope you don't mind my talking colloquially, do you?
15:27 Q: No.
15:31 K: The speaker refutes all that kind of meditation because their idea of meditation is to achieve an end. The end being complete control of the brain so that there is no movement of thought. Because when the brain is still, deliberately disciplined, deliberately sought after, it is not silent. It is achieving something, which is the action of desire. I don't know if you follow all this. May I go on?
16:30 So one has to enquire also, if one is interested in all this, what is desire? Not suppress desire as the monks and the Indian sannyasis do, suppress desire, or identify desire with something higher, higher principle, higher image, if you are a Christian, with Christ and so on. So one has to understand, if one wants to find out what is meditation, one has to enquire into desire. All right?
17:22 Q: Desire being the same as will?
17:24 K: We'll go into that in a minute. What is desire? Why man, a human being, why I, a person, is so dominated by desire. Desire to become rich, various forms of desire. We are slaves to desire, which is a reaction. So what is desire? This is part of meditation. This is what the speaker is saying about meditation. That is, unless one understands the movement of time... may I go into all this? You are interested in all this? May I go on?
18:20 Q: Please, yes.
18:21 K: It is rather fun if you begin to go into it. But if it merely intellectual excitement it has no value. So, this very enquiry into what is meditation is part of meditation. So we are enquiring together what is meditation, what is desire. Desire is perception, contact, sensation. The seeing something, a woman or a house or a garden, or a lovely painting. Seeing, coming into contact with it, touching it, from that arising sensation, then what takes place? Seeing, contact, sensation, that's what actually takes place, When you go into a shop and you see a shirt that you want to buy, you see it, touch it, feel it, sensation, then what takes place? That is where the importance comes. Then thought gives shape to sensation, which is, how would I look in that shirt? So there is seeing, contact, sensation, then thought using the sensation as a means of self-gratification. So can there be a hiatus, a gap between sensation, which is natural, healthy, unless one is paralysed, of course, between that sensation and thought coming in and using it as a means of gratification. Have I made this clear?
21:11 Q: Gratification meaning the desire to possess it?
21:14 K: Desire to possess it, how would I look in it.
21:20 Q: With relationship to myself.
21:22 K: So, thought creates the image of you in that shirt. That's desire, and the intensification of that desire is will, 'I must have that.'
21:45 Q: So will is the actualisation or the implementation of desire?
21:49 K: Desire, yes. Please, this is a matter of dialogue, it is not a matter of accepting something.
21:57 Q: You don't mind if we speak out?

K: No.
22:00 Q: Good.
22:05 K: If this is clear, whether it is possible to keep a wide gap, as it were, between sensation, which is healthy, normal, and thought creating the image of you in the car, of you in the shirt, creating the image, which is the beginning of desire.
22:36 So that is one part of meditation, to understand the nature of desire, not to suppress it, ever. I don't know if you understand, the discipline this requires. Discipline in the sense not conformity but the discipline of understanding, the discipline of learning.
23:11 Q: So you're not saying to turn off desire but merely to more examine it.
23:15 K: No, to be aware of this whole movement of desire, how desire arises and so on.
23:26 Q: You're also saying, to know it so well that you're able to impose a gap and the next step does not necessarily follow. To stop the step of implementation.
23:39 K: If you do it as we are talking, as we are talking about it, if you do it as actually, you will see what goes on. Which is, seeing, sensation, contact, then thought giving an image to that sensation, and fulfilling that desire with all its complications, conflicts and so on. So where there is a gap between the sensation and thought creating the image, that is silence. I don't know if you follow all this. No, please don't agree with me, that is fatal.
24:27 Q: You make meditation sound like a very active enterprise, and I think we normally think of meditation, or achieving a quiet mind, as being an inactive sort of thing, practice.
24:40 K: You can take a drug to quieten the mind, you can concentrate, I won't go into that for the moment, you can do various forms and tricks to quieten the mind, quieten the brain. It's a brain that is dull. But a brain that has understood the implications and the complications of meditation, the brain becomes an extraordinary instrument.
25:16 Q: So the quiet mind is not the empty mind?
25:20 K: Emptiness, to have an empty mind means full of energy. Emptiness is energy. Please, we must go into it step by step, you don't mind?

Q: No, not at all. So the quiet mind is perceiving things, it is receiving sensory information from outside, but it is not manipulating those things?
25:51 K: Yes. Also it has to understand time, not scientific time in the sense of a series of moments. What is time? Not as a special subject studied by scientists or by others, but what is, in our daily life, time? Because unless we lay a foundation in our daily life that's firm, still, then meditation becomes a form of illusory deception.
26:45 So, I must understand desire, there is the understanding of desire. And also understanding of time. What is time?
26:58 Q: A means to become. Isn't time just a means to become something?
27:08 K: Time is not only to become something, I am this, give me time, I'll become that. I am violent, give me time, space, an interval, so that I'll become a non-violent human being. That is part of time. And also time in our daily life is the accumulation of vast knowledge. Time is also the future. So there is time, I'm not a specialist, please, forgive me if I am not.
28:03 Q: Is time the perception of cause and effect?
28:09 K: Where there is a cause, the effect can be eradicated. So, what is the source of time, time as a human being, not I was, I am, I will be. Time is also a movement to achieve the ultimate. I have one life, the whole of Asiatics believe, I have one life and if I die I must have another life, it's called reincarnation, so that I'll become better and better and better and better, life after life, life after life, until I ultimately reach the highest principle, God or whatever you like to call it. So that is part of time. I am this, but I will be that. Is becoming a deception psychologically?
29:39 Q: I don't understand, becoming a deception?
29:43 K: Yes. An illusion, if you like, to use a better word.
29:48 Q: I will have to work hard to understand that.
29:52 K: Yes, that is part of meditation, you see. Meditation is something extraordinary if you understand it.
30:00 Q: It seems so obvious. We see ourselves change, so how can you say that becoming is an illusion?
30:13 K: I am greedy, just to say suppose I am greedy, and my tradition, religion, intelligence says, minimise the thing, don't be everlastingly greedy, silly. So what has happened? I am, but I will be. I am violent, I will be non-violent. That is a movement in time. And in that movement, I am still violent. I don't know if you understand. It is a dialogue between us, please.
31:04 Q: You say we cannot change.
31:06 K: Just listen to what I have to say first. I am violent, and my tradition and all the people around me, environment tells me, and the religious books and so on, society tells me I must be non-violent. But I am violent. So what happens? There is a conflict between what is and what should be.
31:39 Q: Ah, I see what you're saying. Does that mean that if I am violent and I want to make this change, this movement to non-violence I am making a violent act?
31:51 K: There is no change at all.
31:55 Q: You mean that which is, is without time.
31:58 K: You're jumping on me too quickly, let's slowly go into it.
32:05 Q: It seems to me that there may be a change in degree. If you say that there is no change at all, it seems to me that denies the possibility of a change in degree.
32:17 K: Give me a chance, just a minute. I am violent. Human beings are violent, that's a historical fact. After ten thousand, or fifty thousand years, we are still violent human beings, derived from the animal and so on. The fact is I am violent. That's a fact. The non-violence is non-fact. It's an ideal, it's something, it's not fact. But this is a fact. But when I first pursue non-fact it creates more problems. So there is conflict between the fact and the non-fact. So what is important? To be free of violence, not achieve non-violence. I don't know if you see that. So when I am trying to achieve non-violence I am sowing the seeds of violence all the time until I reach that. Which I call a deception, a delusion, an illusion. I don't know if you follow.
33:40 Q: I don't see the difference between an absence of violence, and non-violence.
33:47 K: Of course. To achieve non-violence is a deception, I said. So my problem, problem means something thrown at you, the word etymologically means something thrown at you. Now this is a question I have to resolve, violence. What is violence? Not only physical damage, to hurt somebody, it is also to get angry, also to hate. Violence is also conformity. Yes. Listen. Violence is also conformity. And violence is a vocation of imitation. I know it goes against all. So I have to understand violence. Why is there violence? Because I am conforming, imitating, angry, jealousy, and I am aware of the whole structure of violence. Aware, and give complete attention to that. When you give complete attention to that, it is like a flame burning out the violence. As scientists, you give complete attention to something, and you find an answer to it. It is only inattention that creates the problem.
36:03 Q: If I give complete attention to sensation, will I burn out desire?
36:10 K: Yes. Of course. Not burn out. I have explained, if you agree to that, if you see the logic of it, then why have we given such extraordinary importance to desire? The whole American public is told, fulfil. Don't inhibit, that's terrible. Don't control, let go, do what you like. And we are creating such havoc in the world. That's a different matter.
37:09 So, when there is complete attention, which means give your total energy to that fact of violence, that energy dissipates violence, whole of it, not part of it. That is also meditation.
37:34 Q: It seems to me that there has to be another objective. You surely would not advocate that the sole objective of meditation would be to achieve non-violence, that's negative. You must seek something else, what else are you seeking?
37:57 K: You have understood him?
38:00 Q: You have to talk louder. I say, it seems to me that you have discussed, or mentioned one objective, to achieve non-violence.
38:12 K: I took that as an example.
38:16 Q: However it is confusing me. If you give complete attention to violence in order to find non-violence...
38:27 K: Ah, I am not doing that. I want to understand the nature of violence. As you want to understand the nature of the atom, you have given your whole attention to the blasted thing. Of course. You have studied it, you went into it, you broke it up, Einstein and Oppenheimer, and all the rest of them.
38:51 Q: Excuse me, I think that there is something that is really puzzling me, this whole concept of giving complete attention to anything is to me something which is almost inconceivable, and I would disagree that we have given our attention...
39:08 K: How do you mean inconceivable?
39:11 Q: I don't know what you mean.
39:17 K: What is the difference between attention and inattention? If you are disciplined along a certain line you give a great deal of attention to that. The rest of the time you are inattentive. This is a fact, a natural human fact. If I am terribly interested in something I give my attention to it, the rest of the time I am not attentive.
39:56 Q: But you may be giving attention to more than one thing at different intervals. You may be giving attention to many different things.
40:03 K: So, attention matters, not to different things.
40:09 Q: It's the attention itself that matters?
40:14 K: Of course.
40:15 Q: Rather than what you are putting the attention on? But it's the notion of complete attention.
40:23 K: All right, forget the word complete. Attention means complete. And also one has to understand oneself. This is the importance of meditation, time, desire, all the things I am. What am I? If I don't understand myself I may be deceiving myself all the time. I used to know a friend, he is an Indian, highly educated, been to Cambridge in England, and had a good position in India, and he became a judge. One morning he woke up and said, I pass judgement on these people, what is truth? And it is part of the Indian tradition, especially among the Brahmins, to leave the family, and all that, and find out through meditation what truth is. He said that. You are following? So, he went into the forest and all that, and for twenty five years he meditated to find out what truth was. So somebody brought him to one of the speaker's talks and he came to see the speaker afterwards, and he said, for twenty five years I've been deceiving myself. You understand? Think of the courage of that man, etc. So we talked about it a great deal. Now, unless I understand myself, what is the self, the ego, the person, persona, the ethos and so on, I may meditate for the rest of my life and may be deceiving myself. I may be living in a vast series of illusions, thinking those are real. So I must understand myself. Therefore, I can understand myself not according to some psychologist, Freud and all the rest of it, I must understand myself, not through somebody.
43:22 Q: You can never be sure that you're not deluding yourself.
43:25 K: I am going to show you. One thing, I must know myself, not according to any philosophy, according to any scientist, according to any psychiatrist and so on, not according to any system. I am understanding the system, not myself. See the difference. Now, how do I understand myself? Without any deception, otherwise I've played a wrong game. At the end of it I am deceiving myself. So, how do I learn to understand myself so completely so that there is not a shadow of deception, self-illusion? Is that all right, may I go on? This is a dialogue please.
44:37 Q: What do you do with feeling in that?
44:40 K: Feeling is part of thought, isn't it? I feel, I recognise the feeling. Leave that for the moment.
44:50 Q: Do we come back again to attention in terms of understanding myself?
44:54 K: No, I am going to show you. You are too quick. I want to understand myself, and I must understand myself so thoroughly that there is not a slightest deception, tremendous integrity and honesty, right? Otherwise there is no point. Can you go along with this? Honesty and integrity. I realise that there must be honesty, integrity, and especially scepticism. In the Christian world, the whole Christianity is based on the Bible, on your Saviour and so on, and Christianity doesn't allow any doubt. The religious Christian, any doubt, any scepticism. If there was scepticism and doubt the whole thing would collapse. When we were in Italy, I know Italian somewhat, and I heard the Pope say, he was preaching something or other, he said, you must have more faith. And a friend of mine who was sitting next to me said, this is what they are doing, cultivating faith to destroy any kind of enquiry. So, tremendous honesty, which is very difficult, and great integrity.
46:58 Q: Another definition of faith in Christianity is trust, it's not a matter of destroying enquiry only, but having trust.
47:09 Q: Another matter is trust, is what he says.
47:13 K: Trust in whom, in the Bible? Who do you trust? Do you trust your wife, do you trust your husband, do you trust your president? Why do you trust, what do you mean by trusting? If there is doubt, you're enquiring. You're asking, demanding.
47:38 Q: But you can trust and still enquire about the nature of God.
47:43 K: Sir, trust means what? I trust, if I have a wife, I trust her because I love her. I know she won't do anything ugly to me, and I know I won't do anything ugly to her because I love her. Where there is love there is trust. You don't trust by itself, it means nothing. Please, let's come back to this.
48:14 So I must know myself. Without knowing myself, deception of every kind is possible. You agree to that. Honesty, integrity and scepticism, doubt. And that doubt must be kept on a leash, a dog kept on a leash. Occasionally the dog must be free of the leash so that it can run. But if you keep him all the time on the leash it hasn't vitality, it isn't a dog any more. So we must have that quality. Now how do I understand myself? This is part of meditation, you understand? I understand myself through my relationship to the environment, to my wife, to my father, all that. In my relationship I see my reactions. Is that all right so far? Do you approve? Because without relationship I don't exist, I cannot exist, I may withdraw into a monastery but still I am related, related to the past, related to a concept of what Jesus said and so on, so I am always related. In that relationship, which is a mirror, I see myself as I am, not as I should be, but actually what I am.
50:31 Q: In terms of reaction?
50:33 K: All my reactions. So, that requires an extraordinary watchfulness. I wonder if you can do all this. So, relationship is the mirror in which I see myself as I am, which is far more important than what I should be, because what I am can be transformed, not transformed, that word transformed means moving from one form to another form, but bring about a mutation. I'll use that word. So that is the mirror. So I am watching the mirror in my relationship. The mirror is my relationship. So I see that I am creating an image about people all the time. I've created an image about my wife. I've lived with her for forty years, twenty, ten days, I've already created an image about her, and she has already created an image about me. So these are facts. So our relationship is between these two images. Are you nervous if I say all this?
52:13 Q: No.
52:14 K: Is your wife here too?
52:19 Q: If one measures oneself against the mirror of society, I may not have put that quite the way you would have done, but the focus of my question is, what happens to one's self image if one changes the society?
52:39 K: Now just a minute. Who created the society? We created the society. We are aggressive, we are violent, we are greedy, our society is ourselves. Society is not different from me. I am not a Communist.
53:03 Q: If we move from one society to another.
53:07 K: It is the same. It's like I am a Catholic and I become a Buddhist, it is the same movement. I've changed the name, Buddhism is much more intellectual, much more subtle, much more etc., than Christianity. So, moving from one religion, or one state to another is the same. I am questioning, please, I am saying to understand oneself one has to see what one's relationship is to nature, the trees, the world of nature, the reality of nature, the beauty, the depth and the glory of nature, and also the society. I am related to society, and I say I am different from society. I say we are not, we have created this society. That's a fact, isn't it? Let me finish this. Just a minute, please. We have created this society. Thought has created this society, the culture of a particular society. We are the result of all that. It is our action that has created this society, we are greedy, we are aggressive, we are violent, we are possessive, uncertain, wanting security, physical as well as psychological, so we have this society, which is corrupt as we are corrupt, sorry, you may all not be. So, it is our product. So unless I, part of this society, change radically psychologically, there will be no change in society. That's a fact. The Communists, if I may use that word, may I? I used to have a lot of Communist friends at one time, card-carrying Communists, not easy-chair Communists. They were real Communists. And, we used to discuss a great deal in Paris and other places, and they would go up to a certain point and then say, 'Sorry, Marx is the limit.' Like the fundamentalists in this country, the Bible is the limit. You can't discuss with them, finished.
56:44 So, we are discussing meditation. And in that meditation what is creativity? That's the question. Now, in relationship I see myself as I am. And also I see, any movement to change what I am, please understand this, it's a little bit complex, if you don't mind, any movement to change what I am is still in the same pattern. All right, let me put it differently. Who is it that is to change it? I am greedy, suppose I am greedy, in what manner do I change it? Change means, to something else.
57:52 Q: So wanting to not be greedy is another form greed?
57:56 K: Yes, that's just it. Not wanting to be greed is another form of greed, of course. So, how does that fact change? I discover in my relationship how greedy I am, how possessive I am, sexually and all the rest of it, the attachment with all the complexities of attachment: fear, jealousy, anxiety, hate, in that word all this is contained. All right? You are following all this? We are together in this or am I just talking to myself?
58:52 Q: You have indicated that watchfulness is needed to see these things.
58:57 K: Of course, sir.
59:00 Q: But how can we help the watchfulness to be strong enough to see?
59:06 K: Ah, you can't help it. Sir, why are you a scientist? You want to be that. You spend years, I don't know how many years you spend to become a scientist, and you won't even give five minutes to this. I think to ask, if I may most respectfully point out, to ask how, is to ask for a system. And a system inevitably has a destructive quality inherent in it, entropy and the rest of it. So, in my relationship I discover myself.
1:00:04 And then the next question is, what is attention and what is concentration? You are following all this, does it interest you? Don't be polite, you know, I don't care if you go.
1:00:26 Q: Could we back up just one notch? You were talking about the greed and various things like this, and trying to change them. Is that in the context of changing the sensation or changing the fulfilment of it? You say you're greedy, do you mean you have the sensations...
1:00:44 K: It's a reaction.
1:00:47 Q: It looks like you can eliminate the fulfilment but still have the feeling.
1:00:51 K: No, that's the difficulty. What is the feeling of greed? Possessiveness. You have a marvellous house, I want that kind of house too.
1:01:07 Q: That's the sensation then, the want. It's when you go out and get it that it's something else.
1:01:15 K: Yes. Here in America it's buy, buy, buy, buy.
1:01:22 Q: Go for the gusto.
1:01:31 K: Then I have to go into the question of concentration and attention. What is concentration?
1:01:37 Q: Concentration implies exclusion, doesn't it? Doesn't concentration imply exclusion, excluding?
1:01:44 K: Go into it, let's look at it carefully. Concentrate. In a school the child is told from the teacher to concentrate, don't let your thoughts run away, don't look out of the window. So we are trained from childhood... If you are a religious Christian you focus on Jesus or Christ, or whatever it is. If you are an Indian you do the same thing with a different name. We are a slave to names. So concentration implies exclusion. I am concentrating but thought keeps on wandering, so I have to control it. And then the question is: who is the controller. The controller is the controlled. I wonder if you see that.
1:03:00 Q: You mean controlled by his desire to control?
1:03:03 K: No. The observer is the observed.
1:03:12 Q: One thing I feel compelled to offer as a Christian, you mentioned that Christians concentrate on Christ, and although I attempt to be a Christian I am not a perfect one certainly. But one belief in Christianity is that one not focus on an individual. And one thing that separates Christianity from other religions is that it is more altruistic. Instead of focusing on the self in Christianity we focus outwardly, sacrifice yourself for others.
1:03:43 K: More altruistic, as you put it.
1:03:50 Q: I don't think there becomes a focus on an individual.
1:03:52 K: I'm sorry I mentioned it, let's leave that out.
1:03:54 Q: Ideally there is a spread of feeling for all of humanity.
1:03:56 K: Let's leave out altruistic. We are trying to find out what is meditation and creativity for the moment. We can talk about the various forms of religions, they are put together by thought, there is no question about that. All the rituals, all the dogmas, all the beliefs and all that is put together by thought.
1:04:21 Q: Maybe I wasn't making myself clear.
1:04:23 Q: Let's not get into religion, please.
1:04:25 Q: I wasn't trying to defend a point.
1:04:28 Q: No, let's stick with the subject, OK?
1:04:30 Q: Sure, this relates to the subject.
1:04:35 Q: No, let's stick to it right now.

K: I'm sorry, forgive me.
1:04:37 Q: I'd like to know what is the difference between the self...
1:04:41 Q: I think you're through asking.
1:04:44 K: Forgive me if I brought in Christ.
1:04:55 So we are talking about concentration. Concentration implies focusing your energy on a particular subject which is thought trying to concentrate on something. But thought is also vagrant, all the time wandering off. So there is conflict in that. Back and forth. So one has to understand, please, if you are really interested in all this, what is conflict? Why have human beings lived, after so many thousands of years, perpetually in conflict? It seems normal and you will say yes, it's necessary to be in conflict to progress. What is progression? Are we progressing? Perhaps technologically, amazingly you are progressing. Otherwise are we progressing psychologically? Obviously not. We are what we have been for the last forty thousand years or more.
1:06:05 So, I have to understand what is concentration, which means exclusion, which means I live my life excluding everything, avoiding everything, resisting everything. So there is constant battle. And a brain in conflict wears itself out, loses its energy. Agree? This is so obvious, logical. So is it possible to live without conflict? You understand the depth of meditation, what is implied? So is it possible to live without conflict?
1:07:06 The speaker says yes. He is not boasting or trying to be an example, he has a horror for all that kind of stuff, he says yes, it's possible, he has done it. What is conflict? Why is there duality in us, saying one thing and doing something else, contrary to what you have said. And I am greedy, I must not be, which is a contradiction. So, in us there is duality all the time functioning. So duality is the cause of conflict. Is there duality at all? Just listen one moment. We have to stop. Is there duality at all? There is duality: you are a woman, I am a man. I am tall, you are short or you are tall, I am short, or you are fair, I am dark and so on, there is duality. There is sun rising, sun setting, darkness, light, there is duality. But psychologically is there duality at all, or only what is? There is only violence, not the opposite of it. The opposite of it is non-real, but we have made the opposite as real, and hence there is duality. I don't know if you are following all this. Heaven and hell, devil and God, the whole psychological movement of duality I'm discussing. And we are saying, the speaker is saying, there is no duality psychologically, there is only what is. And if there is understanding of what is then there is no duality. And therefore there is cessation of all conflict psychologically. Because meditation implies tremendous energy required, not just sitting in some silly corner repeating something or other. There's a lovely story of a patriarch, wise and all that kind of thing, and a disciple comes to him and sits cross legged in front of him and closes his eyes. And the patriarch says, My friend, what are you doing? I'm meditating, sir. He said, oh, is that so? So the patriarch picks up two stones and rubs them together. The noise wakes him up, and the disciple says to him, Sir, what are you doing? I am trying to make a mirror out of these two stones. And the disciple says, You can rub them for the rest of your life, you'll never make a mirror. And so the patriarch says, You can sit like that for the rest of your life.
1:11:24 So, concentration. Then what is attention? In concentration there is always a centre. The centre is the me, me concentrating. I don't know if you follow all this. Concentration emphasises the me, the self. And attention has no centre whatever. When I am attending, I am attending, there is attention, it's not 'I am attending'. So where there is attention, the centre with its periphery, with its diameter, with its extension and so on, there is none of that. And out of that we have to enquire what is a silent brain. And we have laid the foundation, that is, to understand oneself so completely there is no fear, psychologically, no fear whatever. Otherwise fear will create all kinds of illusions.
1:13:11 Q: You talked about the mind and the brain, and you made very careful distinctions between them.
1:13:17 K: I am coming to that, sir.
1:13:31 I am taking a breather, sorry.
1:13:43 Where there is attention there is silence. But that silence is like a flame. Alive, burning, not burning anything away, you understand, like the sun, etc. So, attention means complete cessation of the self. When you're attending, you have forgotten yourself, there is no self. The self exists only when there is inattention, when there is no attention. Love is attention. Not sex, not pleasure, not desire, which Americans have reduced love to sex and pleasure, all that. So, attention means silence and that silence is love. Without love there is nothing.
1:15:18 So, then one asks, is there anything sacred which thought has not touched at all? Is all life a material process? I don't know anything about God, I'm not going to invent God. When there is no fear there is no invention for God, the origin of things. We'll find out the origin of things when there is absolutely no fear, and the desire for any comfort, security. Because they are all illusory. So, when the brain is completely silent, and has that extraordinary energy, because it has now stopped chattering. Stopped chattering, please this is all logical, sane, rational, it's not some exotic Indian rubbish. I was brought up there, and I left India at the age of nine. The speaker hasn't read any single religious book, or any philosophy or any psychology. You may say, you are a peculiar freak, a biological freak, I am not.
1:17:19 So, when the brain is absolutely quiet, and therefore empty of images, and it has got that energy. And is there anything sacred, which means, is there anything that thought, man, in his endeavour, in his search, in his conflict, in his suffering, hopes for something. You understand all this? Then if he hopes, then he'll create, then he will project out of his hope something which he immensely wants. So that is a deception. All this implies an insight. Insight is not the result of remembrance. If it is based on remembrance it is just another continuity of memory, thought. So insight is unrelated to thought, memory, experience and time. Something, in a flash you see the whole thing. This happens to all of you, if you are scientists, that insight is partial. Forgive me for saying so. Like an artist, it's partial. We are talking of insight as a holistic movement. These are not words, please. To me they are not anyhow.
1:19:25 So, is there something that is beyond time, beyond measure, beyond all man's urges, desires, and so on? If one finds that, life has a tremendous meaning. The speaker says there is, and I can't prove it. Now this is meditation, and out of that is creation. Love, compassion, has its own intelligence and that compassion, love and intelligence is creativity. Because its creativity does not bring about destruction on the one side, building on the other. I don't know if I am making myself clear.
1:20:37 And there is the last question.
1:20:47 Question: If you were a director of the laboratory, with responsibility for the defence of the country, and recognising the way things are, how would you direct the activity of the laboratories and research?
1:21:10 Thank God I am not. But if I am, would I put this question? Is the question a right question?
1:21:26 Q: Sir, it's a question trying to find a connection between your theories, your beliefs of mankind, and what we're all trying to do, and the practical everyday problems that we have.
1:21:53 K: Yes sir, everyday problems which you have got: earning a livelihood, sex, having children, or not having children, vocation, which is now becoming imitation, everyday problems of quarrels, disagreements, pain, hurts, suffering, this is our daily existence. And our brains are trained from childhood to solve problems. And we are saying solution prevents the understanding of the problem. Seeking a solution prevents the understanding of a problem. Sorry. Because our brains are trained to solutions. I have a problem with my wife, and I say, what is the solution? Divorce, or go to a lawyer, or adjustment, or run away, all that kind of stuff. But the problem is what? My assertions, my wishes, my fulfilment, and hers. Let's understand that, discuss it, finish with it. But if I am seeking a solution I never go into the question. The causation of a problem can be ended not through a solution, but the understanding of the problem itself.
1:23:53 So the question is, if I am director, I say it is a wrong question, because this should have been put right at the beginning, not now. At the beginning of killing man, one human being killing another human being in the name of religion, in the name of country, in the name of God, in the name of crown and loyalty, my country opposed to your country, my ideology opposed to your ideology, I am a devout Marxist, I am not, Leninist, and another is Catholic, and so we are at war with each other. That is the real question, not at the end of all this, 'what should I do'. We have brought about this. We have divided the world, you are a Christian, I am a black, you are white, you're a Caucasian, and I am Chinese, or whatever the beastly thing is, we have divided, fought each other from the beginning of time. And the western civilisation has killed more people than any other civilisation. This is a fact, I am not against it or for it.
1:25:49 A group of people like you in Los Alamos, you have given your time for destruction, and also you do other things, using sun rays, you know all that. You are doing benefit on one side, a great deal of benefit, on the other side you're destroying every human being on earth because you have recognised my country, my responsibility, my defence, and the Russians are saying exactly the same thing on the other side. India is saying the same thing, which has immense poverty, building up armaments. So what is the answer to this? The answer to that for me, I may be wrong, subject to your correction, as a group of people who have gathered together in Los Alamos for one purpose, and if a group who says look, let's forget all nationalism, all religions, let us as human beings solve this problem, how to live together without destruction. If we gave time to all that, a group of dedicated, absolutely, persons who are concerned with all the things we have been talking about, then perhaps something new can take place.
1:27:52 We have never faced death. Oppenheimer, he knew Sanskrit, he said, 'I am become death.' You know that very well. And we don't understand death either, which I haven't time to go into now. But we have become destroyers, and also benefit human beings at the same time. I am not asking you to do anything, I am not a propagandist. But the world is like this now. Nobody is thinking about a global outlook, a global feeling for all humanity, not my country, for God's sake.
1:29:18 If you went around the world as the speaker does, you would cry for the rest of your life. Pacifism is a reaction to militarism, that's all. The speaker is not a pacifist. He says, let's look at the cause of all this, the beginning of all this. And if the causation is there, if we all see together the causation, then the thing is solved. But each one has different opinions about the causation and sticks to his opinions, his historical dialecticism.
1:30:19 So, there it is.
1:30:25 Q: If I may ask, I think you have convinced us...
1:30:29 K: I am not convincing you of anything.
1:30:31 Q: I'm sorry, I'm not using the proper word. I think we have seen from the silence of the audience, that we seem to have enough energy to understand and appreciate the problem.
1:30:40 K: No, sir.
1:30:43 Q: But what I mean is, that once we really try to understand this and do something in that direction, somehow we seem to lack the necessary energy. So the result, we are still not able to make as much progress as we all like, but I would like to hear a few comments from you, what it is that is really holding us. We can see it, we can see the house on fire, but still we are not able to do anything about stopping the fire.
1:31:12 K: The house is on fire, we think it's out there, it's in here. We have to put our house in order first, sir.
1:31:29 Sorry, we have talked, they are looking at the clock. Once I was told by a family whom I had known for some time, the son came to see me and said, 'My father is dying. Can you please come and see him?' And in all families, you know what takes place, the father is dying, and they all surround him crying. So, I asked the father to chase them out of the room, so he said, 'Get out.' He made them leave, and they all left and he locked the door. And he said, 'I'm dying, of a disease, incurable, and I'm frightened.' So I sat with him and held his hand, And he said, 'This is the first time somebody held my hand.' And the speaker said to him, let's die together. Which means what? He was leaving all his family, he had a lovely house, a very rich man, and I said, you're leaving all that, that's what you're afraid of. And also, you're afraid of the unknown, you're attached, where there is attachment there is fear, and so on, we talked gently together. I said, if there is any kind of attachment, I will die with you. If you are free of attachment. You understand what I'm saying? So death has an extraordinary meaning in life. To live with death, not separate death there and living here - together. I've finished.